Value
by philomenia
Summary: Sherlock, forced to turn to his brother for help, remembers everything Mycroft has done for him in the past.


Value

Sherlock Holmes tried not to think about how much he owed his brother.

Of course he was thinking purely in fiscal terms. Of course it had been Mycroft, dependable Mycroft, who Mummy had trusted to handle the family finances. Over the years he had begged, borrowed and stolen many thousands of pounds from his brother. There was the rent and the bills, of course, and there were the phones and the laptops that he kept losing, and the chemistry equipment that had the unfortunate habit of exploding. And then there were the bribes given to police officers, landlords and his homeless network. Not to mention the cost of his Belstaff coat that now hung around his shoulders. But that, he reasoned, had been a gift.

Today, as he hovered awkwardly in Mycroft's office, he was watching his brother write another cheque. As he shifted from one foot to the other, he vaguely wished he had brought John along.

It did Mycroft credit, Sherlock supposed, his brother didn't even blink when he had burst in, asking for money. He just nodded, frowned slightly and took the lid off his pen.

Mycroft had understood that it was necessary the moment his brother had walked through the door – Sherlock presumed that his security team had already alerted him to the fact that his younger brother had barged into the Westminster office and the theoretically secret one in Vauxhall Cross before he had arrived in Mycroft's usual Whitehall office. He had deduced, incorrectly it seemed, that Mycroft would have had a hand in sorting out this business involving CIA bugs in the Deputy Prime Minister's house that the newspapers had been shrieking about lately. Either he had something bigger going on, or he was covering up his tracks. Sherlock was curious – he liked to keep tabs on his brother, it made for fewer nasty surprises – but knew better than to ask about that when he was soliciting his brother, again, for a great deal of money.

The money wasn't for him, really. It was for Baker Street. With Mrs Hudson in financial difficulty, and the threat of eviction hanging over them all, Sherlock had turned to his brother to buy the house outright.

He didn't even want to think what a house of that size in central London would cost. Instead, Sherlock dug his nails into his palm and tried not to make eye contact with the portrait of the Queen that hung behind Mycroft's desk. In this particular rendering she looked intolerably smug.

"There you are." Mycroft handed the cheque over. Sherlock pocketed it swiftly without looking at it.

Mycroft stared pensively at his fountain pen for a while. Sherlock turned to leave, but paused a moment. He had always had immense trouble reading his brother. Where ordinary people displayed their every thought and emotion without regard, Mycroft was a closed book. All he could glean from his brother's expression was that there was something on his mind, which was hardly a difficult deduction.

"What is it, Mycroft?" Sherlock asked, after some moments of hesitation.

Mycroft looked up, surprised his brother was still stood at the other side of his desk.

"Ah." He paused and started to rearrange his desk, not making eye contact, "I had been expecting that this might happen for some time, so I've put the flat in Bayswater up for sale to free up some capital."

"Ah." Sherlock mirrored his brother's awkwardness, and stuffed his hands into his pockets. "I suppose that would be logical. Quite a _nouveau riche_ area these days. Can't believe you still own it, actually." He sniffed loudly, before realising he was being a little too flippant to be convincing.

Mycroft's jaw locked and his shoulders seemed to tighten imperceptibly. Imperceptibly, that is, to anyone but Sherlock. Taking great care, he tried again to read his brother, but could deduce nothing significant from the colour of his pocket square or the lines around his mouth, the marks of stress. Sherlock frowned as Mycroft finally looked up and met his eye, and Sherlock felt himself scrutinised by a deductive talent greater than his own. He flinched, and Mycroft looked away.

"I'll make all the necessary arrangements." Mycroft said, waving him out the door with a flick of his wrist. He pretended not to have noticed Sherlock's tone – but of course he had, he noticed everything.

Sherlock nodded as Mycroft pulled out a file and buried himself behind it. As he was leaving the office he thought he heard his brother sigh.

And Sherlock Holmes tried not to think about how much he owed his brother. Yet, the more he tried not to think, the more the memories came rushing back. How suddenly and unexpectedly Mummy had died that weekend in June. The two of them had always prided themselves on being able to deduce everything; their deductions forming the basis for their predictions. Mycroft's were never wrong. Indeed, Sherlock would often, resentfully, call his elder brother omniscient. But Mycroft hadn't been there, then, when it mattered. He had just turned twenty-one and, at that time, he really did only occupy a minor position in the British government. Even though his brother had hurried up from London as soon as he telephoned, it was a teenaged Sherlock who had held his mother's hand when she died. He remembered thinking how mothers were supposed to die when you were grown up, not when you were fourteen. He barely felt a thing, just disoriented, when he sensed the breath go out of her. He sat down and stared unblinkingly at the floral wallpaper. A few hours later, when Mycroft finally appeared through the door and, after a moment of hesitation, placed a reassuring hand on his younger brother's shoulder, Sherlock had cried for the first time in years, clinging to his brother, leaving wet tear-marks on his expensive suit. Mycroft had remained as stoical as ever, but Sherlock could easily read the depths of his grief and guilt, as his big brother made endless cups of sweet, milky tea for the two of them in Mummy's patterned china teacups.

After that everything happened so quickly. The funeral was arranged in the blink of an eye, and a few days after that the country house was all packed up and Sherlock was clutching a box of his belongings in his brother's black car, bound for London. There had never been any question of an aunt or uncle taking responsibility for him. Mycroft had hurriedly bought a two-bedroom flat near a good school. The kitchen was too small and damp was crawling up the walls in the bathroom. Mycroft had the place redecorated but it never felt like a home, it always felt like a bolthole. Mycroft's books and departmental papers covered every surface. Sherlock hung his periodic table on his bedroom wall, secreted his teddy bear under his bed, and laid out his taxidermy beetles on the dresser. There was no room for his chemistry set, so he set it up on the floor and was constantly burning holes in the carpet.

Mycroft hadn't needed much persuading to keep Sherlock out of boarding school; he conceded that it would be better if he could keep an eye on him. In the months and years that followed, Mycroft bundled him into his sleek, black car to take him to school every morning, straightened his school tie and watched him walk through the gates, hanging back for an extra ten minutes so Sherlock didn't try to play truant. It was a futile gesture though; Sherlock would try to make a run for it at any moment, to spend the day mooching round the park, in the local library reading well-thumbed books about beekeeping, or on the tube riding the Circle Line. A black car with diplomatic plates usually found him, often within an hour, to return him to school. Mycroft never admonished him for playing truant, and borrowed the books about bees that he had been reading from the library.

Mycroft returned every evening, no matter how heavy his workload, to ensure Sherlock eat something, anything at all, for dinner. He ran Sherlock's life precisely and attentively, though the tiredness and stress were wrought on his face. Sherlock resented his brother's overbearing ministrations. Their relationship, always complicated, became strained.

Sherlock had been aware that his brother was slowly taking over the world, but could not connect that powerful and dangerous man with the one who bought his clothes, the one who force-fed him vitamin tablets or the one who had got into an argument with him over his underage smoking that had raged so loud and so long that the neighbours phoned the police. It was hard to imagine that the most indispensable man in Britain, who met with foreign dignitaries and signed peace treaties and declarations of war, was the same man who placated concerned social workers and signed his school letters on the line where it said Parent/Guardian.

And then there was that period of time the brothers never spoke about – Sherlock's addiction problems. Even after Sherlock had left for, and then dropped out of, Cambridge and Mycroft had bought property somewhere more suitable, the old flat still had a purpose to serve. After rehab had failed for the third time, it was in the now-empty flat that Mycroft had Sherlock incarcerated, to go through the withdrawal symptoms. Sherlock had spat and swore at his brother's ruthlessness. He had torn the wallpaper from the walls as he fell into fevered dreams. Mycroft had ignored his desperate pleas for mercy, ignored the screams that rattled in his throat, as he mopped his brow and cleaned the vomit from his face. After a week Mycroft had relented and released him, sending him back to his flat in Montague Street with stern words and a clean shirt. Sherlock had learnt another lesson about how far his brother would go for him. He stayed clean for six months.

Neither had set foot there since. The flat had stood empty for fifteen years.

When Sherlock hailed a taxi, he thought briefly about giving the cabbie the Bayswater address. Instead, he returned to 221b. The warm light glowed from the upstairs flat; he could tell from the shadows that John and Mrs Hudson had just made a pot of tea, or coffee – difficult to tell at a distance. He smiled and bounded up the stairs to tell them he had found the necessary money.

He would never tell them from where.


End file.
